Designing Under the Influence

Concordant Crossroads

Unlike Cocoon, Concordant Crossroads worked perfectly in my blue/green weenie deck (Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise were essentially free). It even had the nice side effect of being an Enchant World that could destroy The Abyss. I'm such a fan of the card that I continually try to get global haste effects into the game. Both Fervor and Fires of Yavimaya owe their existences directly to Concordant Crossroads.

Dakkon Blackblade/Hazezon Tamar

I was known as a wacky deck builder. I loved creating decks that defeated my opponents in ways they had never been defeated before. As such, I went through a phase where I played around with decks that interacted with land. One deck involved both Dakkon Blackblade and Hazezon Tamar. Invasion’s Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer is an homage to these cards.

Divine Intervention

This card was the direct inspiration for Celestial Convergence in Prophecy. The one tweak was to have the game end when the counters finally ran out.

Enchantment Alteration

As a designer, I’m known for my love of tricks. This tricky little card is one of my favorites. I’m responsible for it being repeated in Urza’s Saga and created its sneaky cousin in Odyssey, Aura Graft.

Eureka

Tempted by the “dark side”, I got lured into this spell's “cards for free” flavor. This card (along with the Force of Will) is directly responsible for Stronghold’s Dream Halls. (A card I always feel compelled to point out was named “the worst card in Stronghold” by InQuest magazine; a year later it was banned.)

Field of Dreams

The card Think Tank in Odyssey was created as a tweak of this card. Originally, the new enchantment made all opponents also play with the top cards of their libraries face up.

Firestorm Phoenix

While trying to come up for an ability for Squee (Mercadian Masques) I thought back to this card. I always enjoyed the fact that this card just never died. Squee seemed the perfect character for this ability, so I tweaked the ability and made Squee, Goblin Nabob.

Gauntlets of Chaos/Juxtapose

As I mentioned in the introduction article to MagicTheGathering.com, these two cards were directly responsible for me creating Donate (Urza’s Destiny).

Glyph of Destruction

While working on development for Weatherlight, I found myself fighting to make Goblin Bomb deal 20 damage instead of simply “winning the game.” The effects were very similar, I argued. But Magic needs more large numbers in the rules text. "Remember Glyph of Destruction," I said, "It had '+10'. Magic needs more double-digit numbers on cards." My argument convinced the team and the card was made to deal 20 damage. That is probably the only time (outside of trivia events) where I mentioned the name of that card.

Heaven’s Gate/Alchor’s Tomb/Dream Coat

Another wacky deck-building phase I went through was decks that revolved around color. One of my favorites was a deck revolving around a Martyr's Cry/Heaven's Gate/Millstone combo. (I never said my decks were good, just interesting.) This fondness for color changing spells and permanents (something shared by fellow design Mike Elliott) is directly responsible for the entire color shifting theme that runs rampant throughout the Invasion block (Crystal Spray, Shifting Sky, etc.)

Hell’s Caretaker

This card was central to a deck I played in numerous Melee games (this is a multi-player variant where you sit in a circle and can only attack left.) in my pre-Wizards days. My love of this card led me to create a number of cards that swapped a creature in play for one in the graveyard: Recurring Nightmare (Exodus), Victimize (Urza’s Saga), Apprentice Necromancer (Urza’s Destiny), and Body Snatcher (Urza’s Destiny). It also pushed me to create cards that used other means to return creatures from the graveyard to play: Shallow Grave (Mirage), Corpse Dance (Tempest), and Zombify (Odyssey).

Hyperion Blacksmith/Relic Barrier

Another of my concoctions was an artifact deck that I constantly evolved as new sets came out. These two cards from that deck were my inspiration for Voltaic Key (Urza’s Saga).

In the Eyes of Chaos

This card was my inspiration for the card Ice Cave from Apocalypse. I figured if an enchantment could counter a spell unless the opponent paid mana, why not let it counter a spell if the enchantment’s controller paid mana? Making the mana amount perfectly match the mana cost just seemed elegant.

Kismet

While I’m explaining to you how certain cards affected others, I felt a need to point out an example where a card did not inspire another card. Many people think Root Maze (Tempest) was inspired by Kismet. In reality, Root Maze originally gave all permanents summoning sickness. During templating, it was decided that putting all artifacts and lands into play tapped captured 99% of the intent of the card with a much shorter and more elegant template.

I always liked the mechanic of a card that put cards underneath it. While thinking about the neat things one could do with this, I came up with the idea of a card that could store cards for you. During Alliances development, we had to change an artifact late in the process (playtesting had shown the first version was broken beyond repair) and I suggested this card. Thus, Gustha's Scepter was created.

Land’s Edge

Sometimes designers just take a cool card from the past and update it. Seismic Assault (Exodus) was one such card.

Living Plane

Nature's Revolt (Tempest) is another such update.

Moat

Teferi's Moat (Invasion) is yet another update. Not that we bothered to hide this fact.

Nebuchadnezzar

When I first saw Legends, my eye was drawn to this creature. He had a novel, cool effect. Inspired by this card, years later I designed a spell called “Go Fish.” I put into numerous designs until it was finally accepted in Judgment as the card… wait a minute. Judgment isn’t out yet. Ignore this paragraph. You didn’t read it.

Nicol Bolas

Originally, the dragon legends in Invasion (designed by Mike Elliott) had activated tap abilities. The development team played with them for a while and felt that they were missing something. During one meeting, I suggested we look to the elder dragon legends for inspiration. Nicol Bolas, I argued, was the coolest elder dragon legend. Why? Because he rewarded you for doing something you wanted to do anyway: attacking. What fun are dragons if they don’t encourage you to attack? The team agreed and we put attacking activated abilities on Rith, the Awakener and friends.

Petra Sphinx

I always enjoyed the guessing game this card creates. During Urza’s Destiny, I thought it might be fun to make a card that had a similar feel. Thus was created Scrying Glass.

Puppet Master

I thought it was cool that you could return Puppet Master to your hand if the enchanted creature returned to its owner’s hand. During Urza’s Destiny, I played around with a card, that could both return itself and the enchanted creature to its owner’s hands. Thus, I created Disappear.

Pyrotechnics

This card has led to numerous variants. I’m personally responsible for Rolling Thunder in Tempest (okay, okay, I shouldn’t have made it common).

Rabid Wombat

This card inspired a series of cards in Urza’s Destiny. I always thought the Wombat was a fun card, so during Destiny design I made a number of creatures that got different effects when enchanted (Fledgling Osprey; Metathran Elite; Rayne, Academy Chancellor; and Thran Golem).

Rubinia Soulsinger

My love for this mechanic goes back to Arabian Nights. At the time I played Old Man of the Sea in numerous decks. So when Rubinia came out, I was excited to give this new version a try. Those two cards led me to make Coffin Queen (Tempest).

Rust

This card was the direct inspiration for Interdict (Tempest) and Bind (Invasion).

Storm Seeker

Often times in Magic’s past, there was a cool card that was created in the wrong color. These cards provide a perfect ability for designers to reintroduce the card in the proper color. This card was redone in the proper color, red, in Tempest as the card Sudden Impact.

Sword of the Ages

I enjoyed the endgame flavor of this card. Many a game with my artifact deck ended with me sacrificing all my creatures to the sword for the final kill. This inspired me during Tempest design to create the card Goblin Bombardment. I balanced the ongoing ability of the enchantment by having each sacrificed creature deal much less damage.

Sylvan Library

This card had such a profound effect that it led R&D, for a while at least, to make draw utility (cards that improved your draw) a green ability: Rowen (Visions), Mirri's Guile (Tempest), and Abundance (Urza’s Saga).

Time Elemental

This card was the inspiration for Temporal Adept in Urza’s Destiny.

Transmutation

When mining past sets for ideas, designers love to find weak cards that had a cool effect. This card has been revisited (although these days in blue and red) by numerous designers. My contributions: Dwarven Thaumaturgist (Weatherlight) and About Face (Urza’s Legacy).

Underworld Dreams

In Mirage development we were looking to fill a hole for a blue/green multi-colored card. We had talked about wanting to find a way to create a more balanced Underworld Dreams. The team hit upon the idea of an enchantment that allowed a player to keep drawing more cards but at the cost of taking damage for each card drawn. This card ended up being Malignant Growth.

Venarian Gold

I used this card in the sideboard of my blue/green weenie deck as a way to remove creatures. (With the speed of my deck, tapping a creature for a turn or two was the same as killing it.) Years later, this card inspired me to create another blue creature enchantment that locked down creatures, Sleeping Potion from Planeshift. It’s interesting to note that Sleeping Potion was the merging of two old cards, Venarian Gold and Skulking Ghost.

Wood Elemental

R&D has joked for years about how bad a card this is. During Weatherlight development, we thought it might be cool to make a good Wood Elemental. The card, Fungus Elemental, while obviously better than its Legends cousin saw just about as much constructed play.

I hope this has given you all a little insight into how old cards can inspire new ones. Join me next week when I take a look at R&D’s three favorite Magic players: Timmy, Johnny, and Spike.

Until then, may they not have the counterspell when you call their bluff.

Mark Rosewater

Mark may be reached at makingmagic@wizards.com.